By Gagan Sethi*  The power of television reaching rural Gujarat was envisioned way back in late 1970s and early 1980s. At the Behavioural Science Centre (BSC) in Ahmedabad, I was involved in bringing about awareness on issues of discrimination and untouchabilty with the help of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in Pij village of Kheda district. This project came to be identified as ISRO-Pij experiment. BSC and ISRO seemed strange bedfellows to me, but there I was, working with ISRO. A dynamic producer K Vishwanath, a leftist at heart, wanted us to get real life stories, which would be enacted and shown across the Kheda district. For organisations aiming at social change using Paulo Friere’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” as a frame, this seemed to be a dream come true. Several stories were collected from the field, and professional writers like Chinu Modi and a few theatre actors were roped in. But the result was half-baked version of urban actors mouthing rural dialogues. Not...

By A Representative Representatives of the Sardar Sarovar dam affected from three states – Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra – thronged the streets of Indore in Madhya Pradesh as part of their six-days yatra to “challenge” the “unlawful” decision of the BJP-led government in Delhi to raise the height of the Sardar Sarovar Dam by 17 meters. Saying that the Government of India decision “would lead to a watery grave of 45,000 families”, the anti-dam organisation Narmada Bachao Andolan's (NBA's) statement said, adding, “The oustees questioned the false claims of rehabilitation.”

By A Representative Is the Government of India reconsidering its plans for interlinking of rivers? A top non-profit organization – quoting Union minister for water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation Uma Bharti – has said that this may well happen, in case the senior minister sticks to what she said on the last day of the India Rivers Week 2014, November 27. “Government will not proceed with interlinking of rivers if environmental consequences are adverse”, Bharti was quoted as saying. “if we want to save our rivers, the first step is to ensure that no untreated effluent or sewage is mixed with treated water and finds its way into our rivers.”

By A Representative Australian prime minster Tony Abbott is under attack for “following” Prime Minister Narendra Modi – and for strange reasons. He has been accused of springing a surprise by “buying Facebook likes in India”, like Modi has been doing. SmartCompany , which calls itself a “completely free news, information and resource site for Australia's entrepreneurs”, with contributors including Australia's top entrepreneurs, experts and advisers, has reported that a surge in "likes"on Abbott's Facebook page driven by new fans living in India has “prompted social media users to question his newfound popularity.”

CAG figures quoted by Jethmalani By A Representative Contradicting Gujarat government claims – as reflected in a Government of India book, “Elementary Education in India”, of June 2014 – that dropout rate of lower primary schools went down from 2.99 per cent in 2010-11 to 0.74 per cent in 2012-13, latest report of India’s Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) suggests that the dropout rate was, actually, 19.48 per cent in 2013. CAG confines itself to analysing enrollment in government schools over the years, even as surveying as many as 300 schools to identify infrastructure reasons behind poor enrollment.

Protesters against bypass being detained in March 2014 By A Representative Four years after farmers’ prolonged protests broke out against efforts to divert 177 hectares (ha) of land for the construction of 20-km six-lane national highway as bypass to Junagadh city of Saurashtra in Gujarat, a fact-finding team of the People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) has alleged political conspiracy being hatched while going ahead with efforts to take away parts of farmers’ fertile agricultural for the project. Talking with newspersons, PUCL general secretary Gautam Thakar said, “We found that these politicians, mainly from the BJP, and supported by the UPA government in Delhi, did not want their land to be acquired for the previously planned bypass, which was to be just seven-km long.”

By A Representative In a surprise move, a day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi left Australia, November 18, the country’s oldest and well-reputed daily, “The Sydney Morning Herald”, decided to analyse what it has called “the dark shadows behind the power of Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping”. In a commentary citing protests which rocked Australian streets in the wake of their visit for G-20 summit, Matt Wade and John Garnaut write in the daily, “The adulation afforded to Modi in Australia reflects a stunning turnaround”, adding, “In 2002, when Mr Modi was chief minister of India's Gujarat state, deadly riots cast a dark shadow over his reputation.”

By Gagan Sethi*  One of the early laws on rural livelihood, based on land and labour, was regarding schedule caste cooperatives being given priority over all others in the allocation of government wasteland. Today, a similar status and privilege is accorded to the likes of Adanis and Ambanis. Under the present scheme of things, they “need” land more than the rural landless in the name of ambitious projects. It was 1978. It took us a year to get 90 acres of saline land on yearly lease off the Gulf of Khambhat. It was jointly given to 60 Dalit Vankar families, who registered themselves as cooperative in a village called Vadgam. Since no food crop would grow there, we saw the possibility of growing prosopis juliflora, better known in Gujarat as gando baval – or mad babool. It was a livelihood generation project, in which the gando baval wood was to be used to make charcoal. It was a challenge to manage it professionally. It was one hour walk to the site of the project through a marshy...

By A Representative A fresh incident of attack on those campaigning against stone quarries in Rajasthan has come to light. The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) has said, on November 14, Shankarlal Mina, one of the most active workers in the struggle against stone quarry mafias, and is from village Toda, Neem Ka Thana tehsil, Rajasthan, was “brutally attacked in village market in broad day light”. It added, the attack, in which Mina’s hand and leg were fractured, was by "stone quarry mafia and goondas allegedly owing allegiance to former MLA Ramesh Khandelwal, who lost appeal at the National Green Tribunal (NGT)." NGT, Bhopal bench, in September put a stay on all mining activities and illegal stone crushing in Neema Ka Thana and Sikar district.

By A Representative The American Justice Center (AJC), the New York-based organization which moved an American court against Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of his visit to the US for his “complicity” in Gujarat communal riots, has now "announced" that it has filed of a “criminal complaint” in Australia against visiting Modi for his role in “aiding, abetting and inciting” organized attacks against the minorities of Gujarat before and during the “horrific genocide” of 2002. “The lawsuit is being brought under the aegis of AJC, by Asif Vahora, a survivor of the 2002 massacres, in which over 2,000 people were killed and over 150,000 displaced”, a AJC statement said.

By A Representative Justice PB Sawant, former Supreme Court judge, under whom an apex court bench upheld secularism as one of the pillars of the Indian Constitution, has expressed apprehensions over “attempts at the conversion of India into a theocratic state where Hindus enjoy superior rights." Pointing out the move would be “resisted and challenged”, talking to prominent human rights activist Teesta Setalvad for “Communalism Combat” and Hille Le tv, Sawant, who was also chairperson the Press Council of India, added, “Religious texts of every faith display guidelines to ethical behaviour that can inspire societies and lawmakers.” To watch the interview click HERE

A public event in Delhi, National Meet on Social Lawyering — organized by the Centre for Social Justice and Lawyers for Change — saw release the book , “Nyayika – Making Professional Legal Services Accessible” , which deals with how Nyayika carried out its unique experiment over the last one year of its existence as a private non-profit company. Prof Madhava Menon, chancellor, Guru Ghasidas Central University, Chhattisgarh, who released the book, said the Nayika model of community lawyering offering affordable legal services with sensitivity to the poor and the vulnerable should focus more on people and communities rather than courts. He added, there was a need to move away from court-centric lawyering towards a process of bringing justice to the people by using administrative and other mechanisms outside the courts to enable people to claim their rights and entitlements, and live with dignity. Among those who took part in the event included founding directors of Nyayika Rajendra Josh...

By Gagan Sethi*  It’s been 37 years since I started out as a raw hand with a master’s degree in social work from MS University of Baroda. I had refused a job with a four-figure salary. I joined an organisation, then euphemistically called a ‘voluntary organisation’; there were a few of them which prided in being professional and in the business of social change. Many others were all about charity fostering dependencies. Today we are called NGOs (non-government organisations), a word which describes itself as what it is not — a term coined by World Bank which, in a sense, charts the 37 years of change from social work being a vocation to a profession to a job opportunity! In 1977, I remember supervising food for work, that is, wheat bulgur given in lieu of work to the poor. The work involved either building community assets or remodeling their own fields for paddy so that the incomes of the dalit households could be increased. This was to also provide food security to the poor, espe...

By A Representative The National Alliance for People’s Movements (NAPM), apex body of several people’s bodies across India, has decided to converge in New Delhi on December 2, 2014 to oppose Narendra Modi-led NDA government’s proposed changes in the land acquisition Act, passed last year in Parliament when the UPA-2 government was in power. Calling the decision to change the Act “unacceptable”, the rally will also oppose proposed changes to social, environmental and labour laws. The NAPM believes the rally is particularly important because the BJP’s victory in the Maharashtra and Haryana assembly polls has only boosted the party’s confidence.

Child labour in stone quarries By A Representative Three women and a girl child were wounded in during “illegal blast” in the stone quarries in Bharala (Jeer ki chowki), Neem Ka Thana, Rajasthan, said a statement issued by the National Alliance for People’s Movements (NAPM) quoting sources from people's organisations in the state. The incident, it said, happened because of the “violation of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order” not to continue with stone quarrying in the area, even as "exposing" the existing “nexus between mafias, police and politicians.” The incident happened at 3.00 pm in the afternoon “without any warning when the three had gone to the jungle to collect firewood”, the NAPM added.

By A Representative Prominent people’s organizations have begun to object to the latest Government of India move to undermine the right of the tribal gram sabhas (or general body meetings of villagers) to be consulted before kickstarting any non-forest activity in the forest areas. In a strongly worded letter to the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Government of India, the Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD), Odisha, said the move funs against the spirit of the “historic” Forest Rights Act, 2006 passed by under the previous UPA government.

Click on image to watch interview By A Representative Top Bollywood director Mahesh Bhatt has said that the bandwidth of Indian tradition has been open and wide enough to have a Buddha 2500 years back, questioning the very basis of the Hindu system, which is based on caste system. “The RSS is seeking to narrow this tradition to a bitter and narrow perspective of faith, denying India its diversity and pluralism, which has been its uniqueness and strength”, he has pointed out in an interview with Teesta Setalvad for Communalism Combat and Hillele TV.

By A Representative The National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), India’s apex body of tens of mass organizations, ended its 10th Biennial National Convention in Pune with a promise to usher in a new Left-wing movement in India by calling for “united action” of “secular, socialist and progressive” forces to “combat the rising fundamentalist and fascist forces in the country.” The NAPM, in a statement did not, however, suggest which “progressive forces” it wanted to unite with, but said the new rule by “a fundamentalist-religious-corporate cabal” was seeking to against destroy India’s social fabric.